SK Telecom to provide PokeStops and battle gyms in retail stores

SK Telecom to provide PokeStops and battle gyms in retail stores

South Korea’s SK Telecom Co. announced Monday it has entered into a joint marketing agreement with Niantic, Inc. and The Pokémon Company to provide an environment for location-based augmented reality game and boost their marketing campaigns on the game app that surpassed 650 million downloads worldwide.

Under the joint marketing agreement, SK Telecom’s approximately 4,000 authorized retail stores will become PokéStops to provide various items to catch Pokémon or Gyms for a battle between players. The service will be expanded to all of its retail stores across the country until the end of March.

Currently, PokéStops or Gyms are available only in population dense metro areas, making it difficult to enjoy the game in outskirts and regional destinations.

Moreover, new and existing SK Telecom customers can get free and unlimited high-speed data for Pokémon GO gaming in Korea until the end of June 2017. This will particularly benefit the youth customers, the main players of the game, as most of them are not subscribed to unlimited data plans and thus are more sensitive to data consumption.

SK Telecom and Pokémon Korea, Inc. will ramp up character marketing by selling mobile phone accessories with Pokémon characters.

Meanwhile, SK Telecom recently held a meeting with Niantic to discuss cooperation for the future technologies in the areas of AR and indoor positioning. SK Telecom has been developing and investing in core AR technologies - including ‘T Real AR Platform’ - to build an enriched AR ecosystem.